PROJECT GRANTS

Philadelphia’s Cultural Treasures project grants support projects that position Greater Philadelphia’s BIPOC creative community for enduring success.

In 2024, a total of $1,010,000 has been awarded to 39 BIPOC-led organizations and artists. These grants are administered in flat amounts of $10,000, $25,000, and $50,000 to fund work that includes performances, exhibitions, films, poetry, community-engaged public art, artistic archives, and organizational capacity-building efforts like staff expansions and technology upgrades.

2024 PROJECT GRANTEES

Archives & Documentation

Tania Isaac: To document the dance artist and writer’s more than two decades of practice and produce an artist’s book spanning her performance work, interactive installations, research, and public talks on culture and artistic processes that explore models for thoughtful, audience-centered engagement.

jaamil olawale kosoko: To preserve and present two decades of the transdisciplinary artist’s work in an interactive digital form as The (CHRYSALIS) Archives, including live performance, sculpture, lecture, moving image, and poetry that consider themes of Afrofuturity, healing, and queer theories and practices of the body.

Odean Pope: To create an archive of materials from the jazz musician’s seven-decade career (which includes collaborations with Dizzy Gillespie, Max Roach, Reggie Workman, and others) and develop resources for artists and scholars on the preservation of other jazz and contemporary musicians’ work.

Li Sumpter: To produce Once and Future Legends: Cultivating Legacy, a multimedia, retrospective exhibition and catalogue surveying the work of visual artist and sculptor Phil Sumpter (Li’s father), including figures such as Black cowboys, Black pirates, Negro League baseball icons, Native American warriors, and Philadelphia greats, exhibited alongside Li’s Afrofuturist work.

Creative Collaborations

Artístas y Músicos Latino Americanos: To present six concerts by emerging Philadelphia artists who identify as Latino, Latin American, Hispanic, or Latine, with AMLA providing support through workshops on show planning, rehearsals, and marketing, as well as high-quality video documentation of each performance.

Arts Without Boundaries: To create a community theater program in West Philadelphia for children aged 6 to 13 who will learn to perform a musical theater piece, attend performances around the city, and engage with professional performing artists.

Caribbean Community in Philadelphia: To commission and exhibit barrels, painted by Haitian-born muralist Frito Bastien and African American painter Dori Stewart, representing UNESCO World Heritage sites in the Caribbean and stories of Caribbean people who have migrated to the United States, along with a video and digital teaching materials documenting these stories.

REVIVE Radio + Media: To develop and expand REVIVE’s existing “Mad or Nah?” series, a “woman-on-the-street”-style interview segment produced in audio, video, and text formats, centering the voices of African Americans in Philadelphia on issues affecting their day-to-day lives.

TOMORROW’S GIRLS: To support The Picturing Poetry Project, fostering intergenerational community building through workshops in which young girls and seniors will collaborate to create portraits from fabric and write poetry, culminating in a book of their art and poems, as well as a short documentary on the project.

Creative Freedom & Experimentation

Keyonna Butler: To present I AM Creator/Creation, a traveling exhibition and pop-up installation presenting art, set design, and home decor by Black Philadelphia artists and businesses, as well as opportunities for visitors to create their own works to keep or contribute to the show.

Chenlin Cai: To create The Chinatown Histories Project: Preserving an Endangered Immigrant Community, a community-engaged public mural in Chinatown honoring the neighborhood’s legacy of self-determination and resistance to displacement, designed and painted in collaboration with local residents and workers, facilitated by the Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corporation.

Shinjoo Cho: To advance the pianist and bandoneon player’s compositional practice in tango music through study with contemporary tango composers from Argentina and the US, informing the composition of new music to be recorded with an ensemble of international collaborators.

Jeannine A. Cook: To create Phillis’ Librarie, a mobile installation (named for Phillis Wheatley, the first African American woman to publish a book of poetry) featuring new, old, and rare books along with live music, conversations, cleansing rituals, and writing prompts celebrating women authors, artists, and activists.

Sannii Crespina-flores: To create LO/URE, a mixed media exhibition comprising photography, stop motion film, poetry, and mixed media works, examining the “lore and allure of Black women,” by interviewing Philadelphia-area women and incorporating their inherited knowledge and traditions into the work.

Linda Fernandez: To create a series of new tile paintings informed by research visits to Cuba and Puerto Rico, tracing the history and culture of the artist’s ancestors and the lingering influence of Spanish and North African colonialist histories.

Sherman Fleming: To create Stand, a durational, multimedia performance piece in which the artist recreates the courageous stances embodied by Black historical figures who stood up to racial and social injustice, including Martin Luther King, Jr., Tess Asplund, and John Carlos.

Colette Fu: To expand the visual artist's practice through the purchase of tools like a laser cutter and experiments with the use of various materials in Fu’s photography-based pop-up books, which examine Asian American history, stereotypes, and discrimination and violence against Chinese people.

David A. Gaines: To produce a performance and feature-length film of Gabardine, a one-person poetry show written and performed by the artist, exploring his identity and experiences of Black grief, shame, and joy.

Val Gay: To create Their Will, incorporating music, poetry, dance, and film to tell the story of G. Edward and Addie W. Dickerson, a Black “power couple” in early 20th-century Philadelphia, along with stories of other notable Black couples in Philadelphia history.

Shakoor Hakeem: To compose and record a debut album by percussionist Hakeem, who draws on his Afro-Cuban musical roots and Black American music, featuring his trio In Our Ancestors We Trust with fellow percussionist Khary Shaheed and tenor saxophonist Hiruy Tirfe.

Naomieh Jovin: To create Of Black Wombhood (in collaboration with Zoë Greggs, Tanya Latortue, and Gabriella Nelson), a multimedia exhibition drawing from interviews with Black womb-bearing people and presenting oral histories and portraits informed by the subjects’ experiences and contemporary perspectives beyond pregnancy and birthing.

Xenia Matthews: To develop Mamababy, the filmmaker’s debut feature, a coming-of-age story with fantastical elements that tells the story of a young woman's experience of abortion and her attempt to grow closer to her mother in spite of their generational differences.

Trapeta B. Mayson: To develop Healing Verse Philly—a program that provides on-demand affirmational poems and mental health education—into a model that can be replicated in other communities, as well as the addition of a live call-in poetry telethon component to raise funds for mental health awareness.

Selina Morales: To develop a script for Acapulco Gold—a feature film centering a Puerto Rican perspective— through writing retreats and consultations with experts on Puerto Rican history, tradition, and wisdom, as a follow-up to the award-winning short film Daughter of the Sea, executive produced by the filmmaker and shot primarily in Puerto Rico.

Shavon Norris: To create The Croning, a movement and theater performance that considers Black women’s physical, emotional, social, and spiritual experiences of aging, drawing from interviews, story circles, and movement explorations with middle-aged and elder Black women.

Pedro Ospina: To continue developing The Open Kitchen Sculpture Garden, a community-oriented project in Norris Square that serves as an “artistic laboratory”, considers the largely Latino neighborhood’s land and cultural traditions through food, and hosts events such as artmaking workshops, poetry readings, and dance classes.

Ivonne Pinto García: To create a card game and exhibition inspired by the Mexican card game Lotería, replacing its traditional imagery with new visuals created by Latine artists to reflect the queer Philadelphia experience and offer a means for Latine people to discuss gender and sexuality with their parents.

Debra Powell-Wright: To create We Will Welcome You While You Mother Yourselves, a multimedia exhibition honoring motherhood and featuring visual art, poetry, and performance from the For Women Collective, a group of Black women artists dedicated to the legacy of Nina Simone.

Samuel Rodriguez: To support Walls for Justice, an ongoing mural project through which the artist works with residents, community leaders, and business owners to create murals at schools, storefronts, office buildings, and other public-facing places to share community-specific messages of unity and social justice.

Patrice Worthy: To present Without Vision, a 90-minute musical performance from a quartet featuring pianist Kayla Childs (who performs as Black Buttafly), drummers Steve McKie and Nazir Ebo, and saxophonist Yesseh Furaha-Ali, incorporating spoken word and live conversation with the audience to explore Black relationships, community, generational trauma, and personal identity.

Organizational Capacity Building

Actívate Stories: To create a marketing and communications plan focused on building awareness of and interest in the organization’s forthcoming independent films, aiming to employ behind-the-scenes content in its marketing materials to connect with audience members and grow into a collaborative production company.

Indonesian Lantern Media: To purchase new video production equipment and hire a part-time video editor, in support of the organization’s day-to-day operations producing video podcasts and documentaries that center the perspectives and experiences of Indonesian and Asian American people.

Mamadêlê Foundation: To hire and train two teaching artists and a project management/marketing administrator for the organization’s school residency program, which promotes Afro-Brazilian culture through a blend of artistic practice (including music, dance, and martial arts) and cultural studies.

One Art Community Center: To hire a director of programming to professionalize operations, oversee an expansion of community arts programs, and develop partnerships with artists and arts organizations, with the goal to increase access to the organization’s filmmaking classes, pottery studio, music instruction, and more.

Philadelphia Asian Performing Artists: To professionalize the historically volunteer-led organization by developing a comprehensive strategic plan and then expanding its leadership structure with stipends for administrative roles, while strengthening the organization’s ties to the community of local Asian American performing artists.

Philadelphia Latino Arts & Film Festival: To create a three-year strategic plan aimed at diversifying the genres, disciplines, and forms of artistic work the festival presents, developing connections with partners to grow its impact in the Philadelphia region and beyond, and collaborating with artists from a larger geographic range.

Theatre in the X: To upgrade the sound and live-streaming capabilities of the organization’s live performances at Malcolm X Park, furthering the theater company’s mission to make professional-quality theater performance more accessible to West Philadelphia residents and the greater Black community.

Twelve Gates Arts: To increase the gallery’s technological capacity for data management and internal and external communications, for the purpose of streamlining staff operations and improving the gallery’s capabilities for selling artwork and documenting its programming.

The Young Artist Program of Greater Philadelphia: To create a full-time project/administrative coordinator role for the after-school program, its first full-time staff member, who will take on administrative responsibilities currently managed by teaching staff and oversee fundraising efforts critical to the long-term sustainability of the program.